I win!: The Journey continued.

these adorable things were staring at us as we walked down the street

Where did I leave off? That’s right, Carillo Puerto and our time with the Sanchez family. We were able to spend 2 days in Carillo Puerto. Originally, we had not anticipated that much time, but it became apparent that was where we needed to be. The second night we were invited to attend church where Abram is the Pastor. As we rode in the car to the church, Abram asked us if we would sing. Sing?? Now Darin is an excellent singer, Dean and I prefer to remain in the pew when we sing. While you are always able to decline, proper cultural etiquette is if you are asked to do something, you do it. Darin was able to come up with a song, but we couldn’t quite remember ALL the words. We thought we had it covered, after all we had our trustee cell phones with us, Darin could simply call his Mom, who was sure to remember all the verses. He dialed, no luck, where could Mom Carol be?? A second call was placed to Dad Marlo. Oops, we interrupted him as he was teeing up on the 10th green...Marlo’s advice, make something up. Thanks Dad, we hadn’t thought of that.

Dean and Darin thought I needed to show that they had me hauling everything for them...

People were beginning to filter into the small open-air church. We were able to come up with three verses and I quickly wrote them out on a scratch piece of paper. Our pitiful trio was ready to perform. Oh goody, they even had a microphone for us to use...that way everyone was sure to hear us! At one point in the service, everyone turned and looked at us. We guessed correctly that meant it was our turn to perform, or as I like to view it praise God with the clash of cymbals. Luckily (although I don’t think it was luck at all...) Darin had thought of a song with the word hallelujah in it, this is a word that needs no interpretation. The congregation was able to join us in singing the chorus. Later, Shirley told us that we had proven ourselves to be ‘real missionaries’, for she said only a real missionary would have taken that challenge with the grace and humor that we showed. As the week went on, Shirley learned that the three of us take most everything with a little humor! That is to say we had plenty of laughter that week.

On Thursday we traveled to Tahdziu. Tahdziu is a small Mayan pueblo in the middle of nowhere Mexico. We learned that according to the Mexican government, Tahdziu is deemed to be the poorest pueblo in all of Mexico. The people that live there are aware of this statistic and were told that it has added to the apathy of the villagers. As we were traveling to Tahdziu, we had to stop and ask for directions several times. After the first five directional inquiries, we began to laugh that the answer was always given with a rapid underhand arm movement indicating we drive forward. More often than not, we found ourselves at a dead-end. Again, culturally we were reminded that Mexicans will always be helpful. They may have no idea what the answer is, but they will always provide you with something.

We found Tahdziu. Tahdziu has been carved out of the jungle. Most live in simple stick structures with palapa roofs. Some have small cement block homes. Ok, so we found Tahdziu, now we needed to find Dr. Abraham Ake’s medical clinic. Again, we were given several underhand arm directional waives, all pointing in the same direction our car was facing. Some were right, others led to dead ends. Miraculously we found the clinic and were greeted by Dr. Abraham’s father, Pastor Luiz and his wife Sara. Later, Dr. Abraham returned from visiting patients and we were all invited to lunch. As we quickly grabbed our hand sanitizer bottles (this stuff is invaluable!!) we asked Shirley for some direction as to what would be safe to eat. Shirley, (oh Shirley how I immediately loved you so!) looked at us with a sly smile and said, ‘Well you pray really hard and you eat anything that is put in front of you.’. Alrighty then. Darin looked a little panicked, Dean is always up for a culinary adventure so he was stoked, I was somewhere in-between.

Pastor Luiz Ake and his wife Sara

The family led us out behind their more modern block home, which houses the medical clinic, to their original casita. Pastor Luiz and Sara have the kitchen in the casita, such as it is, and they both still sleep there. They told us that they had raised their five children in that casita. Sara served us soup. Whew...sopa is always safe because it has been boiled. We also spied a large bottle of water next to her cooktop, we were good. As we sat and shared sopa de pollo (soup with chicken, carrot, sweet potato and plantain), Pastor Luiz shared with us the story of how Christianity had first come to the pueblo in 1969. I don’t think I can describe how surreal that experience was that day. Little chicks pecking at my feet as we ate and listened to him describe various aspects of the Mayan culture and the revival that had come to Tahdziu. He shared that the first woman to be baptized had been later shot and drug out into the jungle. The realization that happened in OUR lifetime, in the village where we then sat and ate, left me with admiration for this man and his family and the other members of the church in that area. We left Tahdziu late that afternoon and traveled back to Cancun. We stopped for a wonderful dinner at a roadside stand in Chichen Itza and arrived back in downtown Cancun later that night. As we lay in bed that night and talked about all we had seen and experienced in those few days, we were humbled. We also marveled at how comfortable and at peace we had felt during those days of discovery. We dreamed, was it possible that one day we would call Mexico our home? Only time will tell, but I do know that each time Shirley called us ‘real missionaries’, it warmed my heart. Maybe our quest for full time mission work would materialize, just in a different way and in a different time frame than we had once hoped. Maybe...

some more images from that day: